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Economy’s gloom, iPay88’s silver lining

iPay88 Sdn Bhd, an NTT Data Corporation company and Malaysian-based provider of online payment services recently shared some insights into the country’s e-commerce sub-sector, the services industry.These insights are based on the company’s payment gateway systems supporting over 60-percent of ecommerce businesses in Malaysia.

Executive Director Chan Kok Long said, “From the transaction patterns and volume recorded from our systems, it is highly indicative that this services sub-sector is poised for strong growth in 2016.”

In fact, Chan believes that the e-commerce and mobile commerce will be next sub sector of high growth in Malaysia, even Southeast Asia, from 2016 till 2020.

Chan Kok Long

With Cambodia as a prime example, Chan opined that entrepreneurs can cherry pick from a spread of business models in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, to implement in a ‘greenfield’ and yet-to-be-developed economy like Cambodia.

He even pointed out that technology hubs like the Silicon Valley views the whole world as its market, whereas Malaysia only still views Malaysia and the Southeast Asia region, as their total addressable market. This speaks to the potential that Malaysian businesses have yet to tap into, if only they would change their mentality first and try to leverage the Internet platform.

Chan also said, “Malaysia businesses really have it good with so many government incentives and initiatives from the likes of SME Corp, MDeC, Cradle, Digital Malaysia and so on.

“This is the best environment to excel in business. If you don’t, don’t blame anybody but yourself.”

However, he emphasised that the industry shouldn’t be afraid to fail. “The more you fail, the more that Silicon Valley wants to hear from you (and learn)!”

iPay88

The Malaysia-based payment services provider was responsible for up to RM1.6 billion in transaction volume in 2015, but expects this to increase by over 63-percent to RM2.6 billion in 2016. Chan observed that the only other industry to have experienced such a high growth rate was smartphones.

That isn’t all that would be increasing for iPay88. The project to add over a hundred merchants every month in 2016, for a 21-percent growth rate to a 10,000-strong merchant base, by year end.

Chan shared, “E-marketplaces are the leading e-commerce segment which contribute over 40-percent of total transactions. But the travel and airlines industry also contribute major growth for us.”

The online payment services provider has also taken it upon itself to expand market potential by mentoring potential start-ups, raising funds and arranging pre-approved loans, as well as planning to ‘adopt’ a university and have their own technical team train IT students in web and mobile apps development.

2016

Moving forward, iPay88 would be leveraging NTT Data’s strong branding and infrastructure in Southeast Asia for easier access into markets. Within the next 12 months, iPay88 would be expanding their presence to Thailand and Vietnam, for example.

Last September, the Japanese system integration company, NTT Data Corporation had acquired stakes in iPay88, as they not only saw the opportunity within the company for their own payment business, but also view it as a suitable hub from which to expand into the region.

NTT Data’s CAFIS payment gateway system commands over 70-percent market share in Japan, with over 460 million transactions per month.